The recent events have triggered discussions like this one and others. "Raise driving/drinking age". You have someone who, despite being unable to drink and drive at all legally, ended up with a 0.19 BAC, drove at excessive speed and in an unsafe manner and crashed. There are laws in place and he broke a number of them. Underage drinking is already happening, so how will raising the age to 21 stop it? Increasing restrictions as a knee-jerk reaction won't stop those who break these existing laws from breaking them and only penalises those who have done the right thing.
"Been a good boy and driven only at 0.00 BAC?"
"Never drunk before 18?"
"Well, you'll have to wait 3 more years, while the idiots will continue doing what they want."
Many of the cases we read about talk about how the driver had already lost their licence, was drunk/high/stoned, had extra restrictions as a result of previous offences and still went out doing all the wrong things. I believe a day or 2 after the Mill Park incident, a 17 year old girl unlicensed and drunk crashed a Magna, even after reading about the other incident.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/dru...-1225821406936
How does increasing restrictions stop someone breaking existing laws? For starters, the penalties for repeat serious offences need to be implemented in full or increased. Caught driving while suspended 3 times? Jail. Drunk as well when caught? Double the penalty. The courts keep extending the licence ban, despite them being there for ignoring it, and the offender keeps driving. Gee, great deterrent.